Thanks ... man I'd love to do a UK DS trip. Come to think of it, I'd love to do a DS trip to anywhere!!! Or a trip to anywhere, even if there was no DS. OK, ok, I'll take any trip anywhere for anything! But I'm not sure what the future for AvB expeditions is ... I've been unbelievably fortunate to do these 3 trips in the last 18 months. It's not something I had done prior to that, and I don't know what the future holds. I'm sure I give the impression of being a semi-retired free agent but in fact we still have a big family with lots of commitment, full time care for our disabled daughter, running a small business etc, and the only reason I've flown the coop for these adventures is because of my incredibly generous, loving, capable, stoic, understanding wife. And believe me that's not any exaggeration. And my older kids who despite all the hair-tearing-out I did when they were small, have strangely turned out to be remarkably mature and helpful! When I make these trips, I half expect one of life's regular crises to scotch the plans, so I am never 100% sure I'm going till I'm on the plane. Then I have to be very contactable when away, and in the back of my mind I know I may have to cut the trip short at any time for work or family reasons. Truly it's a miracle that I've got on the plane for all 3 trips, and have not come back early. I nearly did this time when things got to much at home. We had a late night Skype and Janet was upset, overwhelmed with tiredness and problems ... not a good scene, and the next day I wasn't feeling any good, knowing she was exhausted, running a fast treadmill and juggling too much at home. But she insisted that it was OK and she'd feel like a failure if I had to come home, and we hung on and things got back under control. (side issue ... Important tip for men here ... when your woman says she can't cope and she has to talk to you, don't fall into the usual trap of trying to work out solutions. It's taken me a lifetime to learn that sometimes all your woman needs is to "download" it all on you, and they feel better! I know, weird ... ). Anyway, I am very blessed. I hope one day things settle down enough that we can get away more easily together, rather than separately. She's off to visit some friends in the US soon, so I'll be holding the fort ... except it's not the same for me because she's frozen a pile of precooked dinners in advance!

Anyway, off topic, sorry. Haha I can see the MG rating (Mountain Goat) becoming a statistic on the DS site pages on RC Speeds!
Zero = park and fly, wheelchair flyer accessible.
10 = pack crampons and rope, suitable only for people who've qualified for iron man triathlons in the last 6 months.

Finally got around to watching the full video of the Return to Tekapo.

Showed highlights to the in-laws last night and they thought it was great!

And i think it is even better!

Thank you Andrews for going down and doing some recon. I feel we can use that site in lighter winds now. We are still only in the beginning of the NW season, and the winds become more Westerly into summer. I have great aspirations for that site.

Was fantastic of Nick to lend his place and vehicle for you guys! That Mazda looks like an off-road beast! Just not an on-road beast haha

Just finished editing the vid. After converting and uploading ... I have to go out so it will probably be more than a few hours till I have it linked on here. But it should appear on my Vimeo page before that. Being the last one, I went to a bit more effort, but it's also such a beautiful site and great flying that it's definitely a must-watch. Top notch actors playing the main parts, too.

Superb video Andrew, thanks very much for all the effort which goes into the making of them. I am with Alex, I reckon you could sell them.
I get the feeling as if I have been there with you guys. The beauty of it is, I haven't broken a single plane yet.

OK guys, it's the last video, of the last day of DS adventuring ... successful exploration of a new site and all. I really think you all need to see this one! As you'll see, we really do have a good time on these adventures. Make sure you don't miss it. It's the sort of video you might watch twice!

I'm going to be watching the Vimeo statistics, and I want to see those numbers skyrocketing, from all quarters of the globe!

Just watched the day at Cass in the 70mph winds again, I think a Kinetic 100 would have been really good in those conditions. Needed the big laps and a model with weight and good energy retention. I think a K100 would have done over 300 easier than anything else and 400 would have been a possibility. I am keen to get my old K100 re-built as a beater and give it a try next time we get that kind of wind there

Just watched the day at Cass in the 70mph winds again, I think a Kinetic 100 would have been really good in those conditions. Needed the big laps and a model with weight and good energy retention. I think a K100 would have done over 300 easier than anything else and 400 would have been a possibility. I am keen to get my old K100 re-built as a beater and give it a try next time we get that kind of wind there

Yes, would have been great to see. They are an incredible plane.
Interested to know about Andrews 265. Was it hard to get on the gun ?? Because the laps where so big.?? Or did you think it was just not at the gun , as in angle??
The last bit of the video was incredibly fast , to me it looks like 350+
Im just going on what happened at cactus , the DSX looks equally as quick.
And in 72mph wind I'm sure it would have gone 300 in a matter of laps of a heavy fully ballasted plane. The laps looked incredibly big. The plane was a dot in the bottom turn. looks similar speed to ian's WR.
Was there lots of no reads?
I know when ezza was going deep I got nothing , and as he came closer the gun would read.....and Sean's deepend was easy to read , I almost got every lap , but that fly's more aggressive tighter laps , and closer , but is harder to track.
Some planes just don't read well but I didn't think the DSX was one of them as it has large AR. Same as us over here , love to have 2 or 3 guns on a plane like the USA guys , at least you raise the chances of someone getting a number.

It's a regular thing for the big dogs to report sessions where the fastest laps are missed. Part of the game unfortunately. Short answer is without the numbers, nobody knows. It's just speculation. My own feeling is yes, it was well above the fastest I went at Weldon for several short bursts. I was going so deep it was ridiculous, but it shot out at terrifying speed, and I've never seen the DSX's wing shudder full span like that as it crossed the shear. But it was so hard to get the good line because there was a massive hose of air blasting down the back from our left, and if you followed the normal line the plane got hugely smacked about. A couple of times, trying a normal line, the plane came out of the bottom turn and slowed down and wobbled about like it was drunk ... scary stuff but it got back over the lip OK. I seemed to get the best result by diving the plane down and away from us, then doing a tight bottom turn so it came back at us at an angle. But that line put the plane a long way away. If I tightened it up with a closer bottom turn, it lost the power. Maybe that's why it got missed. The other thing that was happening was interference to the gun. We only had one gun up there (other one was in the car, but there wasn't a spare person to hold it anyway as there were 3 of us and one was videoing). Same thing as happened earlier that day at Sugarloaf ... the gun kept giving readings of 445 I think, and so half the time was spent rebooting it, or it wouldn't hold the peak memory.

It was freakingly fast. I think we were all shocked how quick it was. But the whole scene was pretty crazy and we were not in a calm sort of state like DSing at a good hill. The wind noise was huge, and even standing behind the rocky bump it was still windy, but not enough to knock you around. We had to yell, it was so noisy. When Alex got the first 445 reading, he yelled out something like "holy crap!" and actually believed it for a bit, till we had time to think about it and realized it must be a mistake.

Anyway who cares about the speed ... OK it would have been FANTASTIC to have got a big speed, but I have no regrets ... what a blast, I'm stoked to have flown it in those wild conditions and taken home the DSX in one piece! A memory I'll never forget.

Thanks Andrew. Does sound like a amazing day , and the DSX noodling must have been something to see. And so glad you got it down in one piece.
For the next adventure..
With Adobe movie premiere , you can get the frame by frame speed. Like matejo did with his storm chaser plank.